


Lost in Translation

by Anonymous



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 02:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5988463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're both new to this translation business (not that they were around at all before it); there's plenty that needs getting used to, or, as circumstances dictate, that needs plugging your ears to and ignoring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Translation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sath/gifts).



“Zei- _at_ ,” Dlique warned, sprawled out alongside her fellow translator in their assigned bed. Well, it was the only bed that they were aware of at all, an uncertain concession to their unusual, fledgling bodies, which run out—really, they _really_ do this—run out of energy and have to be stored horizontally for a brief duration of time until they can be relied on again to function properly. It’s dreadfully inconvenient. “You’ve got your leg in me. Get it out.”

They could be functional now if they were required to be. It had been a significant span of hours. But there was nothing in particular on the itinerary and neither of them had thus far been sent reprimands for not getting up.

Well, no. Dlique knew that she hadn’t been sent reprimands, or that was to say, she thought she was Dlique, and she knew she hadn’t been sent reprimands, but then there _was_ a chance that she hasn’t been sent reprimands and she _wasn’t_ Dlique. Zeiat would mention it, probably, if they were getting in trouble, but Dlique, she wasn’t so sure about.

“Dlique,” she repeated, just in case. “You’ve got your leg in me.”

“I think it’s ‘on’ me.”

She opened her eyes, a bit too strongly; for a second her vision blurred around the edges. Getting used to muscles and other parts that your entire intelligent brain felt were all _wrong_ was such a nuisance. But she had to check on the legs! It was always worth checking, since you couldn’t necessarily be sure that the leg which was yours the previous day was still yours, or that it existed anymore at all. “No. That’s definitely my leg. Yours is over top of it, that one’s you.”

The other translator sat up and folded her limbs away, tucking the legs underneath the middle part. Abdomen? Thorax? In any case, she stored her legs under her body, instead of just retracting or removing them like would be sensible to do. “I meant,” she responded, “it’s a matter of wording.” Suddenly she was staring at her hands as if they were a logical part of the sentence. “It’s stupid and arbitrary, of course, and doesn’t work very well at all. But this part is on the outside of them, like a gun cartridge around a bullet, except that with bodies you _don’t_ want the inside bits to go flying out and crashing into things. At least not generally.”

“You have absolutely got to be Zeiat,” Dlique decided. She was glad to know that she was Dlique. It wasn’t comfortable, having Zeiat’s leg inside her, and it would be even less comfortable trying to be diplomatic or understanding about the idea of a body being such a fragile thing that it couldn’t withstand anything passing through it. What was the point of that?

Zeiat nodded agreement. Not about the bodies—Zeiat had taken marginally better to at least the abstract principles of human anatomy—but about her current state of being Zeiat. “Oh! And that reminds me. They’re very angry with us, and have been since shortly after we woke up.”

“Oh.”

“They’d much prefer if we got out of the bed,” she added, lying back down.

“Do you think if they got angry enough with us they’d separate out all our parts and recombine them? Maybe we’d be a better translator with two heads.”

“I’d say we’d be quite a bit worse.”

“What about four legs, then? Or six, or eight. I’m sure they can make more and attach them somewhere. There’s all that empty space. And we’d be much more efficient, then, because we’d be faster, and we’d gain plenty of space for organs. If we only keep one head,” Dlique considered, “I think I’d like to keep mine. You can have your legs, if we have to stick with only two, since you’re so fond of putting them into things.”

Zeiat rolled over, then, putting her whole entire body inside of Dlique. No. Inside of Dlique’s protective outer cartridge? No, it was no good, she didn’t understand this at _all_.


End file.
